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as cared neither what they writ, nor was cared by others 1." AN. REG. 4, And so much may suffice in general for this excellent piece, to the publishing whereof that learned prelate was most encouraged by Peter Martyr, (as appears by Martyr's letter of the 24th of August2) with whom he had spent the greatest part of his time when he lived in exile; and happy had it been for the Church of England if he had never done worse offices to it than by dealing with that reverend Bishop to so good a purpose. But Martyr only lived to see the book which he so much longed for,-dying at Zurick on the 12th day of November following, and laid into his grave by the magistrates and people of that town with a solemn funeral.

18. Nothing remains for the concluding of this year, but New Bishops. to declare how the three vacant Bishopricks were disposed of; if those may say to be disposed of which were still kept vacant. Glocester was only filled this year by the preferment of Mr Richard Cheny, Archdeacon of Hereford, and one of the Prebendaries of the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster, who received his episcopal consecration on the 19th of April3. Together with the See of Glocester, he held that of Bristol in commendam, as did also Bullingham, his successor; that is to say, the jurisdiction, with the profits and fees thereof, to be exercised and enjoyed by them, but the temporal revenue of it to continue in the hands of some hungry courtiers, who gnawed it to the very bone; in which condition it remained under the two Bishops, till the year 1589, when the Queen was pleased to bestow the remainders of it, together with the title of Bishop, on Doctor Richard Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, whom afterwards she preferred to the See of London1. And as for Oxon, it was kept vacant from the death of King, the first Bishop of it, who died on the 4th of December 15575, till the 14th of October 1567, at which time it was conferred on Dr Hugh Curwyn, Archbishop of Dublin and Chancellor of the realm of Ireland; who having held it but a year, it was again 1 1 Jewel, ed. Jelf, iv. 201-2.

2 This letter (Jelf, iv. 3; Zur. Lett. 161) was written on receiving the published book, which Jewel had sent off in February. Sup. p. 368. 3 Godwin, 552-564.

* Godwin, 564. Fletcher (father of the dramatist), was preferred to Worcester in 1592, and thence to London in 1594. Richardson, ibid.

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AN.REG.4, kept vacant twenty years together, and then bestowed on Dr John Underhill, who was consecrated Bishop thereof in December 1589; but he dying also shortly after, viz., anno 1592, it was once more kept void till the year 1603, and then took up by Dr John Bridges, Dean of Salisbury, rather to satisfy the desires of others than his own ambition1. So that upon the point, this Church was filled but little more than three years in forty-six. The jurisdiction of it was in the mean time managed by some officers thereunto authorised by the Archbishop of la Canterbury, the patrimony and revenues of it remaining in the 32 hands of the Earl of Leicester, and after his decease, of the Earl of Essex, by whom the lands thereof were so spoiled and wasted, that they left nothing to the last Bishops but impropriations; by means of which havock and destruction, all the five Bishopricks erected by King Henry the Eighth were so impoverished and destroyed, that the new Bishops were necessitated to require the benevolence of their Clergy at their first coming to them, to furnish their episcopal houses, and to enable them to maintain some tolerable degree of hospitality in their several dioceses; of which we shall hear more hereafter from the pen of an adversary2.

1 Godwin, 545-6.

The reference is to Rastell, quoted below, viii. 4, as challenging Jewel to shew that in the primitive times any Bishop "gathered a benevolence of his clergy, to set him up in his household."

ANNO REGNI ELIZ. 5.

ANNO DOM. 1562, 1563.

AN. REG.5, 1562.

1.

THE

Parliament.

'HE last year's practices of the Papists, and the dangers New Acts of thereby threatening both the Queen and State, occasioned her to call a Parliament on the 12th of January, in which first passed an Act, "For assurance of the Queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions'." In the body whereof it was provided, "That no man living or residing in the Queen's dominions, under the pains and penalties therein appointed, should from thenceforth, either by word or writing or any other open deed, willingly and advisedly endeavour to maintain the power and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, heretofore claimed and usurped within this realm." And for the better discovery of all such persons as might be popishly affected, it was enacted, "That none should be admitted unto holy orders, or to any degree in either of the Universities, or to be barrister or bencher in any of the Inns of Court, &c., or to practise as an attorney, or otherwise to bear any office in any of the Courts at Westminster Hall, or any other Court whatsoever, till he or they should first take the Oath of Supremacy on the holy Evangelists;" with a power given to every Archbishop and Bishop within this realm and the dominions of the same, "to tender or minister the oath aforesaid to all and every spiritual person in their proper dioceses, as well in places exempt as elsewhere." Of which last clause the reader is to take especial notice, because of the great controversy which ensued upon it, of which more hereafter. And because many of the Popish party had lately busied themselves by conjurations, and other diabolical arts, to inquire into the length or shortness of her Majesty's life, and thereupon had caused some dark and doubtful prophecies to be spread abroad, there passed two other Statutes for suppressing the like dangerous practices, by which her Majesty's person might be endangered, the people stirred to rebellion, or the

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AN. REG.5, peace otherwise disturbed. For which consult the Acts of Parliament, 5 Eliz. c. 15, 161. By which three acts, and one more for the better executing of the writ de excommunicato capiendo", the Queen provided very well for her own security, but more provoked the Pope and his adherents to conspire against her in the time to come; against whose machinations, backed by the power and counsels of foreign Princes, nothing was more conducible than her strength at sea; for the increase whereof, and the continual breeding of a seminary of expert mariners, an Act was made for adding Wednesday to the number of the weekly fasts, which from thenceforth was called Jejunium Cecilianum, as being one of the devices of Sir William Cecil.

The Common
Prayer and

Homilies
translated

2. In reference to religion, and the advancement of the service and worship of God, it had been declared by the Bishops into Welsh. and Clergy, assembled at the same time in their Convocation, to be "a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church; or to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understood by the people." To comply with which pious declaration, and take off all retortion which possibly might be made by those of Rome, when they were charged with the administration of the service and Sacraments in an unknown tongue, it was enacted, "That the Bishops of Hereford, St David's, Bangor, Landaff, and St Asaph, should take care amongst them 15 for translating the whole Bible with the Common Prayer Book into the Welsh or British tongue, on pain of forfeiting 401. apiece in default thereof." And to encourage them thereunto it was ordered, "That one book of either sort, being so translated and imprinted, should be provided and bought of every cathedral or parish-church, as also for all parish-churches and

1 c. 15 against prophecies; c. 16, against witchcrafts. Jewel, writing of Mary's reign, Nov. 2, 1559, says, "Magarum et veneficarum numerus ubique in immensum excreverat" (Zur. Letters, i. Lat. 25); and in a sermon preached before Elizabeth (Works, i. 1027-8, ed. Park. Soc.), he speaks of the increase of witchcraft, and urges "that the laws touching such malefactors may be put in due execution." Comp. Haweis, Sketches of the Reformation, 216, seqq. ° 5 Eliz. c. 23.

35 Eliz. c. 14. See Neale on Feasts and Fasts, 344. Rishton in Sanders, 303. Gardiner had been ridiculed in like manner, for appointing Wednesday to be a fast. Fox, vi. 32.

Articles of Religion, No. xxiv.

1562-3.

chapels of ease where the said tongue is commonly used;-the AN. REG. 5, Ministers to pay one half of the price, and the parishioners the other1." The like care was also taken for translating the books of Homilies; but whether it were done by any new order from the Queen, or the piety of the four Welsh Bishops, or that they were considered as a necessary part of the public liturgy, by reason of the rubric at the end of the Nicene creed, I have no where found.

Meeting of

3. As for the Convocation which accompanied the pre- Metica sent Parliament, it began on the 13th day of January in the tion. Cathedral of St Paul:-the Latin sermon preached by Mr. William Day, then Provost of Eaton College, afterwards Dean of Windsor also, and Bishop of Winchester3; which being finished, the Bishop of London presents a list of the several Bishops, Deans, and Chapters, which had been cited to appear; the catalogue of the Bishops ending with Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, that of the Deans beginning on another file with Alexander Nowel, Dean of St Paul's, elected by the Clergy for their Prolocutor. The Convocation after this is adjourned to Westminster for the conveniency of the Prelates, by reason of their attendance on affairs of Parliament. Goodman, the Dean of Westminster, had made his protestation in the Church of St Paul, that, by appearing as a member of the Convocation by virtue of the Archbishop's mandate, he subjected not himself nor the Church of Westminster to the authority or jurisdiction of the See of Canterbury; and now, on the Archbishop's personal coming to the Church of Westminster, he delivers the like protestation in writing for preserving the liberties of the Church: in which it was declared, according to the privilege and just rights thereof, that no Archbishop or Bishop could exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction in it, with

2

1 5 Eliz. c. 28.

Wilkins, iv. 230, seqq. A fuller account in Cardwell, Synodalia, 405, seqq.

3 Brother of George Day, Bishop of Chichester, who has been repeatedly mentioned in the History. He was consecrated to Winchester, Jan. 25, 1595-6, and died in September following. Godwin, 240.

This cannot, however, imply that the Dean was a member of the Upper House; for we find him acting as one of those who presented the prolocutor to the Archbishop, and subscribing with the clergy of the Lower House. Wilkins, iv, 232, 237.